03/15/13 The Amendments have Helped Animals!

In today's Parliament session the modification to the Animal Protection Act has been accepted, together with the amendments. Members of Parliament accepted the amendments that the Government issued during their 80th Session, based on the amendments proposed by Mirela Holy and the club of representatives of HNS party. Even though the Ministry of Agriculture wanted to remove the ban on experimenting on animals for cleansers from the Act, which would have greatly downgraded the Act and would have increased the number of experiments on animals, the Government and the Parliament have kept the ban with the amendment and improved the Act by banning dog racing.

The ban on experimenting on animals for research or development of chemical products used for the cleaning and disinfection of articles for general use, drugs and general effects of radiation remains in the Animal Protection Act, which is what the Ministry of Agriculture initially left out of their proposal to change the Act. However, thanks to the amendment from the Member of Parliament Mirela Holy and the Government that passed on the proposed amendment to the Parliament as their suggestion, this extremely important provision has been kept.

Dog races, which have so far only been banned on hard surfaces, are now completely banned. With the amendment from HNS's Club, which the Government accepted and included as their own suggestion, the Animals Protection Act has been improved, by the provision that prohibits all dog races on any surface. Therefore the possible torture and killing of dogs as a result of racing and betting has been prevented, which is the reason why in countries where this hasn't been banned a large number of greyhounds suffers and are transformed into live machines for running and betting on.

Except for the listed examples which have been made possible by the amendments, through modifications to the Animal Protection Act certain EU directives have also been accepted regarding the ban on the import of skin and fur from seals, dogs, cats and certain feral animals caught in traps. Another positive change is also the application of the term "domestic animal" to those beings that are not domestic in Croatia, such as llamas and camels, in order to stop attempted manipulations during circus animal performances that feature these animals.

Animal Friends would like to thank the members of parliament, the Government and the Parliament for recognizing the importance of protecting animals and for adopting the amendments that have prevented the downgrading of the animal protection in relation to the existing Act and also improved the Act through a complete dog racing ban.

Also, Animal Friends emphasises that it is necessary to adopt already proposed provisions with the next modification of the Animal Protection Act, such as a ban on bull fights, a ban on permanently keeping dogs on chains, a ban on keeping all kinds of animals in circuses, a ban on killing animals in shelters, the founding of the animal protection inspection, a ban on slaughter according to religious rite and other important provisions that could have been included with this modification to the Act.

Last week in Slovenia, modifications and supplements to the Animal Protection Act have been adopted, which now prohibits the breeding and hunting animals for fur, skin or feathers, and slaughter according to religious rite without stunning has also been banned. Croatian legislation, which contains the ban on breeding animals for fur, but not for skin and feathers, can learn from Slovenia's example, as a member of the EU, that through collaboration with animal protection associations and governing institutions, it is possible to adopt good quality legal provisions for animal protection that are in line with the growing awareness about the need for the ethical relationship with other living creatures.

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Animal Friends is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, founded in 2001 with the aim to promote animal protection and animal rights as well as veganism, as ethical, ecological and healthy lifestyle.
Animal Friends Croatia is a member organization of EVU,
Eurogroup for Animals, ECEAE, FFA, IAFC and OIPA.